


though i try to resist i still want it all

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They win their second round against the University of Minnesota and he gets so drunk celebrating afterwards he has to call Derek to pick him up at four in the morning. He feels bad about it, but Derek is smiling when Stiles gets into his Toyota, pointing to the detox juice on the cup holder, and Stiles is just so happy to get to the Frozen Four and so drunk and he loves Derek so much he can’t not say it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	though i try to resist i still want it all

**Author's Note:**

> as a warning, this is unbetaed and written at like 3am

When Stiles feels good, it seems like the game slows down. It’s like he can see the hits coming, how the puck will bounce, what the goalies are thinking. It seems like he’s invincible. When he steps on the ice, he forgets about the upcoming draft, about the internet rumors about him, how he had to lock his Instagram account because he couldn’t deal with the comments, forgets about his classes. It’s just him and eleven other players trying their hardest to win. That’s what matters.

Then the game ends and he has to step out of the ice.

University wasn’t part of The Plan. The Plan was: Stiles would follow the footsteps of the greats, the number ones overall. The Plan was OHL, or National League A. The Plan involved no distractions, no social networks, not googling himself or watching TSN or Sportsnet. University was definitely not in The Plan. Hell, staying in the US wasn’t in The Plan. His father didn’t care.

-

“You have to understand,” Derek the TA says, in front of the forty students that bothered to showed up to the lecture when Stiles knows there are more than a hundred signed up for the class. “When Kelsen talks about how the law should be pure, how we shouldn’t let ideologies or people’s background or cultures interfere with it, he’s in Germany when the Nazism is ascending. He’s trying to say ‘don’t let the crazy Nazis and their racism influence our laws’, but ended up creating a system that only helped the ideology he despised.”

There’s a game on the weekend. There’ll be games every weekend. He’s been in school for almost two months, but the hockey season just began and he’s a starting forward, a first liner, because the coach was too excited to have someone who had gone number two overall on the OHL draft in their team. Stiles wished he could care more. About college hockey. About his fucking Intro to Pre-Law class. Derek keeps talking.

-

The Plan came to life when Stiles was seven and his mother was getting sick, but wasn’t too sick to carry his hockey bag to the rinks where he practiced. He didn’t know it back then, but she already knew they wouldn’t have much time together. Stiles has yet to meet someone who loves hockey as much as his mother did. Her World Championship gold medals decorated their walls, next two the two silver Olympic medals she won when she was younger. 

The concussion that ended her hockey career was her third. The concussions were also the reason she got so sick. His father says hockey killed her, but she died saying she wouldn’t have lived at all if it wasn’t for hockey. So when she died, after months in the hospital, months Stiles spent next to her, not even thinking about playing, Stiles had to be the one dragging his hockey bag with him, asking for friends’ parents to take him to the rink, because his father wouldn’t, because his father would say he couldn’t.

-

At first Stiles thought that maybe if he wasn’t in Yale, maybe if he was in Boston College, in Boston University, in University North Dakota, hell, in fucking Providence that turned out to be a great hockey school the last couple of years, he wouldn’t feel so bad. But then he realized it wouldn’t have made a difference. He would have a better team, talk to one or two people who maybe were almost as good at hockey as he is, but it wouldn’t be fun.

College hockey is easy. College hockey is easy and boring and he loses more than he wants to (he never wants to lose) because his teammates aren’t future NHLers – they’re future engineers, club owners, CEOs, journalists, sports analysts, guys who are planning on graduating, getting their Ivy League diploma, getting a MBA, spending a couple of thousands of dollars for New York Rangers season tickets, joining a beer league – and he hates losing. He can feel his draft rank going down by the minute.

His father has a list somewhere Stiles likes to call the Famous NHL Players Who Went the College Hockey Route. He dropped names just as much as he sent Stiles online articles about how NCAA impact on the NHL is growing and that now 30% of NHL players are NCAA alumni. But Stiles hears Jonathan Toews, Zach Parise, Ryan Kesler and Johnny Gaudreau and can only think about Crosby winning multiple Hart trophys, Connor McDavid having five-point nights as a rookie, Ovechkin reaching 50 goals a season more than a couple of times, Bergeron basically owning being a defensive forward. College doesn’t teach that.

-

Derek the TA was also Derek the Yale Law student who seemed to be in every bar the Yale Bulldogs men’s ice hockey team would end up to celebrate a home win. Derek the TA was six years older than Stiles and looked better than anyone he had ever met. Derek the TA was smart and well read and had gotten a perfect score in his LSATs. Derek the TA knew Stiles played some kind of organized sport, but didn’t know which and didn’t seem to want to. Derek the TA had an apartment near campus and spent most of his time studying. Derek the TA kissed like Stiles dreamed kisses would be like. Derek the TA wasn’t part of The Plan.

-

It’s funny that Stiles never feels more at home than when he is in a locker room. The Yale Bulldogs locker room is no different. Most of his teammates like him, like that he helps them get the points they wouldn’t get otherwise, like that he helps the team climb the rankings the way it wouldn’t otherwise, don’t feel jealous because they know they won’t play this professionally, don’t mind that he’s arrogant about being better at this than the rest of the them because they know it’s true.

Stiles is not shy about asking for help with Real Life Stuff, like where he should eat, what easy classes he could sign up for his second (hopefully last) semester, what bars don’t card. His linemates are two seniors who like hockey enough to enjoy bragging to their high school friends they know him, but don’t like it well enough to think playing hockey is better than the fact that they study in Yale. They don’t mind helping him, letting him tag along to everything. They talk about their girlfriends, invite him to meet their rich families who can’t wait to meet a world juniors gold medalist, drag him to their frat parties. Stiles never talks to any of them about Derek.

-

Derek finds out he plays hockey because Stiles is too mad after a loss to deal with his roommate and drags his things to Derek’s apartment. Derek opens the door, doesn’t complain he showed up uninvited, lets him eat anything he finds in the kitchen, keeps studying while Stiles lies in the bed and watches The Office.

Right then, on Derek’s bed, half watching a stupid TV show on Derek’s iPad after eating Derek’s leftover vegan takeout, with Derek at his desk, reading through case law, or something Stiles doesn’t even want to know about, Stiles feels calm like he never feels.

Hockey is excitement. Hockey is skating until your legs can’t stand it anymore and then resting until you can skate again. Hockey makes his heart beat fast and makes him sweat and, yeah, it makes him happy, but it’s a loud happy, it’s a goal horn happy, it’s people screaming at the top of their lungs happy. Derek makes everything calm, makes him quietly happy. And he feels so much he doesn’t think he can think about it anymore.

So he gets out of the bed, walks to the desk, closes Derek’s laptop, takes his hand, drags him to the bed with him. Derek complains about having to study, about how hard law school is, but kisses Stiles back, slow, hard, puts his hand on Stiles’ neck, lets Stiles take their clothes off, lets Stiles kiss every inch of his body, smiles like Stiles has never seen someone smile before.

-

Christmas with his father is awkward. He wants to talk about Derek, wants to talk about hockey, wants to discuss the teams that probably won’t get to go to the playoffs even though it’s still December and everything can change until the season is over. His father wants to talk about his classes, his grades, his professors.

Stiles feels guilty about being mat at his father. He shouldn’t. His dad spent most of his money his whole life buying Stiles hockey gear, letting Stiles travel to Canada so he could go to the best hockey camps, looking the other way when Stiles got bad grades because of his training. Stiles doesn’t pay for hockey equipment anymore and he doesn’t need to pay for school, his grades ended up high enough that, with hockey, he could get into Yale and get a hockey scholarship, but his father had to raise him alone for 10 years, be a hockey parent by himself for 10 years, and Stiles is grateful.

But he doesn’t want to do university. He never did. And he doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to be in the NHL. He’s six months away from getting drafted. He knows he’s good enough to end up a first rounder, but he wants to be good enough to end up in a ridiculously bad team, a team that will need him, a team that can choose so many other people and chooses him instead. He wants to get the happiness his classmates tell him they got when they were accepted into Yale.

-

“You have a game this weekend?” Derek asks him. It’s the first week of the new semester and they’re on Derek’s couch eating grilled chicken and pasta, even though Derek really wanted to order a pizza, because Stiles can’t cheat on his diet so close to the playoffs, so close to the draft.

“I have games every weekend,” Stiles says. Two games every weekend. Friday and Saturday. Some games on Tuesdays. “You know that.”

“I know, but do you have away games this weekend?” Derek asks. Stiles shakes his head no. The team will get to spend the weekend on home ice, on the familiar locker room. “Do you mind if I come watch you?” 

That’s a surprise. To say Derek doesn’t like sports is kind of a stretch because he knows Derek likes to play basketball with his hot law school friends every Saturday morning. Stiles likes to go and watch and stay as far away from anywhere the ball could end up as possible, just to watch Derek in his basketball shorts running around the court. But Derek doesn’t care about sports, isn’t a fan of a team like Stiles was growing up, feeling like he needed to watch the Sharks play every single one of their games. And Derek definitely doesn’t know anything about hockey.

“I don’t mind,” He answers, after a few seconds of silent surprise. “I can get you tickets. Are you bringing anyone?”

“No,” Derek says. “Just want to watch you play.”

-

Stiles would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited about the playoffs. It’s going to be fun and full of NHL scouts watching him to see if he lost his edge after playing a year of college hockey when he could be playing serious hockey.

He doesn’t even think they’ll go farther than the first round, playing against Boston University, but he’s proved wrong when they get a power play with five minutes left in the third, the game tied, and he manages to assist the game winning goal. When the game ends and they win, after he hugs their goalie like never before because stopping thirty-two out of thirty-four shots on goal is not easy, he looks to the stands, to the place he knows where Derek is sitting, and smiles at him.

-

They win their second round against the University of Minnesota and he gets so drunk celebrating afterwards he has to call Derek to pick him up at four in the morning. He feels bad about it, but Derek is smiling when Stiles gets into his ugly mom car, pointing to the detox juice on the cup holder, and Stiles is just so happy to get to the Frozen Four and so drunk and he loves Derek so much he can’t not say it. 

Derek laughs like he thinks it’s a joke, like he needs to humor drunk Stiles, like Stiles is saying “I love you” in the same way he says it to Marc when he blocks a shot in a penalty kill in overtime. Stiles is too drunk to correct him, so he just drinks his green detox juice and smiles, thinks about the day Derek will understand what he means when he says “I love you”. 

-

They lose against UND. They’re in North Dakota and Derek doesn’t watch the game because he’s got midterms he needs to be studying for. Law school midterms. Stiles doesn’t want to admit he’s superstitious so instead of thinking they lost because Derek wasn’t there, he tries to make himself be glad that Derek didn’t have to watch him lose. It almost works.

-

They tell him he’s a top 5. Being a top 5 means doing all the top 5 press he always dreaded but dreamed he’d need to because he’d be that good. Being a top 5 means having to spend time with four other players who don’t think he’s at their level because he’s American and he’s been playing college hockey for almost a year. Being a top 5 means watching the Stanley Cup finals and meeting some of childhood idols. Being a top 5 means probably being able to start in the NHL next season. 

His teammates think it’s awesome. His dad keeps trying to talk to him about Yale. He doesn’t talk to Derek about it at all. 

-

“So I was talking to a friend of mine who’s really into hockey,” Derek says one morning while he’s making breakfast for the both of them and Stiles is watching morning cartoons on Derek’s TV. “He says you’re a pretty big deal.”

“So?” He asks, doesn’t know why Derek is bringing this up now.

“So he says you’re probably going to be playing in the NHL soon,” Derek says it like a question, like it’s not a certainty that, barring injuries, Stiles will be playing in an NHL team in one or two seasons.

“That’s the plan,” Not The Plan anymore, maybe, Stiles thinks, The Plan is probably dead. But it’s the plan.

“I didn’t know you were that good,” Derek says. “I thought you were just enjoying a hockey scholarship.” 

“Derek, you watched me talk about nothing but hockey for the last six months. I told you I’m here because my dad wanted me to go to college,” He says. “I did it because I knew I wouldn’t have to be here for long.”

“So you’re definitely not coming back after this semester?” Derek asks. But Stiles looks around Derek’s apartment, at the hockey sticks next the wall, at the skates he got Derek so they could skate together, looks at Derek wearing nothing but sweatpants and socks, and doesn’t know the answer to that question.

-

Stiles gets drafted third overall to the Maple Leafs. He tells every reporter who asks that he still got at least a year of college hockey left in him.

**Author's Note:**

> the most self indulgent thing i've ever written and i might self indulgently turn it into a series idk


End file.
